Speed not a major cause of road deaths: official

London cash camera group rapped for misleading advert

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint that an advert placed by the London Safety Camera Partnership stating that:

"Speeding causes over a quarter of all deaths on London's roads"

was misleading.

However, it did not uphold the complainant's second claim, that reductions in death and serious injury resulted from speed reduction caused by other factors, such as an increase in traffic, rather than the introduction of speed cameras.

The complainant objected that:

1. the claim "Speeding causes over a quarter of all deaths on London's roads" was misleading, because he believed speed was a contributing factor rather than the single cause of a quarter of road deaths and

2. the claim "where I operate, drivers slow down, resulting in a reduction in death and serious injury at London's traffic black spots by up to 30 per cent" was misleading, because he believed the reduction in death and serious injury resulted from speed reduction caused by other factors, such as an increase in traffic, rather than the introduction of speed cameras.

1. Complaint upheld

The advertisers said the claim was based on an analysis of Metropolitan and City of London Police records by Transport for London. The advertisers explained that, after a collision took place, the police assessed which factors had contributed to the accident and, based on those factors, decided the most appropriate causation code to record for the accident.

The advertisers stated that, in a three-year period ending in December 2003, 228 fatalities were recorded under four causation codes associated with speeding: going too fast having regard to the road environment; going too fast having regard to other road users; losing control; and driving too close to the vehicle in front.

They argued that, because the total number of road fatalities for that period was 850, the figures showed that speeding was the main cause of 26.8 per cent of the road fatalities in London.

They said that was corroborated by the Web site of the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary, which stated that speeding caused around 1,200 fatalities annually.

They argued that, given that total road fatality numbers nationally were 3,700, this showed that 32% of fatalities annually were caused by speeding.

The advertisers also asserted that research showed that the probability of a collision being fatal increased exponentially in relation to the speed of the vehicle involved.

The ASA understood that none of the factors identified by the advertisers necessarily involved a vehicle exceeding the speed limit. The Authority considered that the claim would be understood by readers to mean that vehicles that exceeded the speed limit had caused a quarter of all deaths on London's roads and not that speed was merely a contributory factor in a quarter of fatal accidents.

The ASA then concluded that the claim was misleading and told the advertisers to amend the claim; it advised them to do so with the assistance of the CAP Copy Advice team.

2. Complaint not upheld

The advertisers said they had not claimed that the reduction in people killed or seriously injured (KSI) was due to cameras alone, but merely that, where cameras had been placed, KSI reductions had followed.

They sent an academic paper that discussed speeding behaviour and collision involvement in car drivers in Scotland. It reported that research had shown that there were fewer speeding vehicles at sites where cameras were installed.

The advertisers said the statistic in the claim was based on their own records and was in line with current national Department for Transport (DfT) statistics. They said the term "black spots" referred to those areas where there had been at least five KSIs before a camera was installed. They asserted that an average KSI reduction of 24 per cent had occurred at those locations. The advertisers sent a spreadsheet that recorded KSI reductions at 112 camera sites in London up to 31 December 2000.

The advertisers asserted that, at sites without cameras, the average annual reduction in KSIs was approximately 2-3 per cent. The advertisers sent a DfT two-year pilot evaluation research paper, published in 2003, and the West London Speed Camera Demonstration Project report, published in 1997.

The DfT pilot research stated that, nationally, KSIs had fallen by 35 per cent on roads where speed cameras were installed, compared to the long-term trend. The other report compared accident data before and after the installation of cameras in a West London trial area.

The ASA noted from the December 2000 spreadsheet that, of the 112 camera sites listed, 23 were traffic black spots. It noted, after the installation of cameras at those black spots, KSIs fell by between 33 per cent and 100 per cent. The Authority noted the West London trial report stated that, relative to control data, 12.1 per cent only of KSI reduction was directly attributable to the presence of speed cameras. It understood that KSI figures for all of London were not available in the DfT pilot research; full KSI statistics for London would not be available from the DfT until the autumn.

Because the DfT's June 2004 speed camera report stated that, nationally, there was a 40 per cent reduction in KSIs at sites where speed cameras were installed, the Authority considered that the evidence sent by the advertisers showed that, in general, a reduction in KSIs followed the installation of speed cameras.

It considered that, although full KSI statistics for London were not yet available, it was reasonable to assume that KSI reductions in London would follow the national trend. Because of that, the Authority concluded that the advertisers had justified the claim.

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